Focus · 01
Scope.
Framing the work at the right altitude. The single biggest tell of a leader who isn't yet operating at VP is scope drift — the pull back into IC craft. We work on what to own, what to delegate, and what to let others take.
Expert AdvisoryBrian Fenn · illogicalproject
Executive advisory for product and design leaders.
Executive advisory for leaders navigating hyper-scale, organizational design, and complex platform transitions. Grounded in 25 years of operational leadership at Nike, Amazon, and Microsoft.
The shape
Engagement
Custom · 3 months
Cadence
Biweekly 1:1s
Limit
5 active clients
The five-client limit isn't marketing — it's the maximum I can hold without the work getting thin.
The work
Focus · 02
Voice.
Executive presence is shorthand for a real skill: writing and speaking with conviction at decision tempo. We work on the artifacts a VP actually ships — the memo, the deck, the all-hands, the board-prep one-pager.
Focus · 03
Narrative.
Roadmaps don't move organizations. Stories do. We work on the executive narrative that turns a backlog into a thesis and a thesis into something the CEO will fund.
Focus · 04
Transitions.
IC craft to org leverage. Manager to leader of leaders. Two-team scope to multi-org. The moves are different at each step, and the failure modes are specific. We name them and rehearse them.
Advisor
The challenges you're navigating are ones I've operated through at enterprise scale.
Senior Director roles across Nike and Dick's Sporting Goods; earlier work at Amazon and Microsoft. Built and scaled product organizations through platform transitions, org design inflection points, and C-suite strategy cycles at enterprise scale.
MBA recruiting · Chicago · Nike Central Product Management
The talent architecture
Co-authored the foundational PM career ladder for the 300-person Nike Direct Product org — defining the exact operational markers required to cross from execution to executive leverage.
Organizational scale
Directly hired, developed, and scaled cross-functional teams of 120+ across product, design, and engineering.
Geographic scope
Unified cross-functional structures operating seamlessly across three continents.
Book a discovery call
Pick a slot for a focused, 20-minute alignment call. We'll talk about the problem you're solving and whether there's a fit.
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